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A SPIKE in Covid-19 cases has forced Government to tighten lockdown regulations and the strict regulations came into effect yesterday.

Under the new regulations, all gatherings except funerals are banned and companies have been directed to decongest by 50 percent.

Restaurants and fast-food outlets now serve takeaways only while beer halls and nightclubs remain closed.

Operating hours for most businesses are now from 8AM to 6PM but bottle stores will open at 10AM and close at 4PM. Members of the public have been urged to avoid travelling to hotspot areas as part of measures to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Government is also enforcing strict localised lockdown regulations in hotspot areas. Kwekwe City is among the hotspot areas where strict localised lockdown regulations are being enforced after a deadly Indian Covid-19 variant was detected in the city.

The business hours for Kwekwe are from 8AM to 5PM. Travellers through Kwekwe have been advised to spend as little time as possible in the city.

The country last week recorded 596 new cases and 26 deaths prompting Government to tighten lockdown regulations. The spike in Covid-19 cases calls for immediate behaviour change by all citizens and strict enforcement of the tightened regulations.

It is a fact that though bars and nightclubs remain closed since March last year when Government enforced lockdown regulations, the bars and nightclubs have been operating illegally. Police should therefore be out in full force to ensure the bars and nightclubs remain closed.

The country is under threat of a third wave of Covid-19 and the detection of the Indian variant in Kwekwe is even more worrying. Citizens cannot afford to throw caution to the wind because the pandemic is still with us. There is definitely a need to clamp down on some social liberties as people have demonstrated that they are reckless and therefore need to be assisted to minimise their exposure to the pandemic.

Since the relaxation of the lockdown measures, there has been rampant flouting of lockdown regulations hence the need to strictly enforce the regulations to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Zimbabwe is among countries in the Sadc region that have been recording low figures of Covid-19 cases but that should not be an excuse for flouting lockdown regulations.

We have said before that our effective weapon against the pandemic is to prevent infection. It is therefore, incumbent upon each and every citizen to take measures to prevent infection.